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I'm in Amsterdam! ! !
I only have 5 minutes but I will say as much as possible.
I LOVE IT HERE.
Not only did I find the train ride through Holland Beautiful but everyone is super nice, there are bikers everywhere, the markets are nice, the super narrow houses, the canals, the atmosphere and everything has made me truly truly feel I could live here.
Another huge reason I feel that way....this hostel. I am staying at "The Shelter Youth Hostel" and it is fantastic! It's a Christian run hostel and boy is it exactly what I needed. I truly believe this is a lot of why I felt God calling me on this trip. I will go into more details later but let me just say this. Upon arrival I went to the nearest hostel I knew of, called the Flying Pig. Well upon arriving it was jam packed and loud and crazy and full of blaring music and I believe I saw 2 cross-dressers...not what I was feeling like going to after spending an extra 2 hours on the train (I'll explain later). So I headed to the Shelter Christian Hostel. Upon arrival it was peaceful and quite and the receptionist was super kind. While standing and getting checked in I noticed a sign explaining their ministry and giving you information for if you were interested in helping... Within 10 minutes of arriving and seeing this I felt pretty sure that God is calling me to do this....
Here are the basics
-You can do 3-6,9, or 12 month periods
-It costs 60 Euros a month for Food
-They give you free accommodation
-You get to serve God

That's about it.
Have to go or this will die. Miss you all!

OK so I literally ran out of time as I hit the submit button. So I got more time and now I'll write some more, sadly my battery is running out so I can't write a ton. Haha. So ya. I really feel that God is calling me here. I can explain it all to you in more detail if you want later but I'll try and hit the basics here as usual.
Basically to start off with I should explain that I took this trip for many reasons. To see the world, to learn and grow, to compare where I live to the rest of the world, to meet people and most of all because I felt God was calling me too. Now throughout this trip I've had conversation after conversation with strangers or friends I had just met that would last for hours about everything. Again and again and again these conversations would lead to Jesus. I didn't matter if they were from Japan, England, Spain, Italy, Germany, Mexico, France, Canada, the US or anywhere else. I've always found it interesting that you can go into a conversation about anything and steer it towards religion and Jesus and people will latch on. I'm serious, try it some time. I've gone into conversations talking about sex, drugs, school, travel, being stupid, politics etc. etc. and it will change to religion and I don't even have to lead it there usually. Anyway after this happening again and again and me sharing my faith and relationship with Jesus to these people or to a single person I always felt that this is what God wants with our life. I really started thinking this the night before I left Aachen. I had headed back to my room at 9pm expecting to go to bed early. After getting completely ready my roommate walked in. Having not introduced ourselves yet we made acquaintance and started talking, pretty soon it was 12:30 and we had talked about everything and spent the majority of the time on religion and faith and Jesus. Before heading to sleep I really starting thinking about all these conversations I'd had and started wondering if there was a way God could use me in this way and incorporate travel and meeting and talking to backpackers about their lives into a ministry. Well then I ended up here. Once again God led me somewhere. So I spent the day with Coco (my roommate) hiking in the woods and having lunch and visiting a museum before heading to the train station together. He headed back to Paris (where he works at the Eiffel tower!!!) and I tried to take a train to Arnhem. This is where God comes in I believe. So I was under the impression that the day before when I had checked trains from Koln to Amsterdam it had said it made a stop in Aachen and then Arnhem and then Amsterdam. That's why I went to Aachen for the stop over and was then going to go to Arnhem for a stop over and then to Amsterdam. Well when I checked prices it was about 48 euros to Arnhem and 33 to Amsterdam... I was very surprised but it meant I headed to Amsterdam...or tried. I got on the train which was supposed to take 2 hours and ended up on it for 4. What happened was apparently some copper wire had been stolen the night before which connected the tracks or security and so it was throwing everything off. What ended up happening was I got halfway to Amsterdam before we stopped and everyone got off for some reason. Then the next thing I know I was going the opposite direction as before. The interesting thing here is that so far everyone in Holland has had the best English of anywhere I've been and yet the trains don't say anything in English whereas France and Italy did. (I can't speak for Spain as I didn't ride a train there) Anyway I found out that I had to switch trains because the train couldn't continue on the same track supposedly. I don't honestly know what all happened short of I think I made a total of 3 more train switches (when I shouldn't have had any) and was told at one point that we couldn't go over 14 kilometers an hour. Nonetheless all this meant that when I arrived in Amsterdam at 10pm and headed to the nearest Hostel to crash cause I was tired and exhausted I moved right past it. I swear I saw some cross dressers playing pool and they were blaring music and there were probably about 25 people crammed in the front room partying and it smelled of Marijuana. So I booted up my little lappy and amazingly got a free wifi connection immediately and found directions to this hostel, the Shelter Christian Hostel.
BAM! AMAZING!
Like I already said within ten minutes I was pretty convinced God is calling me back here. If I work her for a few months it means I will get to witness to backpackers, live in Amsterdam (my homeland!!), receive training in multiple areas (Evangelism, Leading etc. etc.), be in the bike capitol of the world and only pay 60 Euros a month for it. That includes everything short of travel costs and insurance. They provide bikes and food and accommodation. Wow! So it's now just a matter of when to come I think.

Anyway so today I did a free walking tour and saw the town. Got to learn about the city and it's history see the New Church, Old Church, Red Light District, Boobs (see photo), the huge Post Office, the National Monument and more. After this I got some lunch and then visited some stores and street markets. I really liked the feel of the markets On the way back to the hostel then I passed a live concert taking place on the water (with TONS of security) with a beautiful singer and full orchestra playing along. It was amazing. Granted it is their Liberation Day so they were having a national Holiday but still it was very cool.
Once back at the hostel I joined a Bible study discussion which went pretty well (just 4 of us with a late joiner) and then had dinner. During dinner (which was at the hostel) I got to talk more to David and Angie and John who were all at the Bible study. They are all really nice. David and John work here and Angie is just traveling through but it was great to talk about everything and John told me a lot more about serving here (he's been here since September, David's been here 2 weeks) which sounds amazing. Then while talking he introduced us to another guy that works here who told us his story of how he ended up at the hostel and ultimately came to Christ. That was an amazing story. Basically long story short he went from owning his own magazine and making 15,000 Euros a week to nothing. He's from London but was supposed to get to Spain and was robbed of everything he had I believe once he got there. The next 3 weeks he spent homeless on the streets and eventually got enough money to get to Amsterdam where he ended up deciding he was going to end his life. He explained that he then ended up at the Christian Youth Hostel and froze. He couldn't move and God told him “I've taken everything away from you; you're girlfriend, money, house, food and almost your life...now all you have to do is walk through that door and give it to me.” So he did. It was a while before he accepted Christ but ultimately that ended up leading to it. If you want to read me he sent me the link to his book he wrote about it. I haven't read it yet but will. Anyway, it's been amazing so far and I really feel God calling me here.
Stay tuned for more updates (only 2 days left in Europe!! Then New York!) Ok got to go!!

The book link is below. The picture link is http://picasaweb.google.com/spencercarson/Amsterdam#